I don’t trust him either. If you have seen Hillbilly Elegy, his “autobiographical” movie, he is a total narcissist. He portrays family members as backwoods idiots. I am from hill type people and they may not have spoken perfectly or graduated high school, I have respect for their talents at other things. Narcissists make bad politicians.
Well, I lived in the same town as Vance in the 70’s, and you can take it from me, Middletown OH was definitely full of backwoods idiots. Most of them were not nice enough to respect, and didn’t possess any other talents.
Not that the upper crust in that town was any better.
None of them ever had anything good to say about anyone from outside their group. I left in 1981 and never came back except to visit my parents.
Don’t even get me started about basketball.
Well, I lived in the same city as Vance in the 70’s, and you can take it from me, Middletown OH was definitely full of backwoods idiots. Most of them were not nice enough to respect, and didn’t possess any other talents.
Not that the upper crust in that town was any better.
None of them ever had anything good to say about anyone from outside their group. It was definitely a SMALL TOWN even with a popultion of 50,000 at the time. I left in 1981 and never came back except to visit my parents.
Don’t even get me started about high school basketball in that weird town.
But at least back then, there were plenty of factories in Middletown that provided decently-paid work to the hillbillies, briars, and rednecks. Those factories probably closed before JD was ever born.
Disclaimer: I never read the book or saw the movie. But the commercials for the movie made me cringe.
I much preferred James Webb’s book_ Born Fighting.
I read Mr. Vance’s BOOK, and did not find it arrogant or denigrating to hill people. My wife and I left the Northeast for the hills of KY. The people are friendly and welcoming, even to “former Yankees” like us! Some things I read about the film suggest to me they took some unfortunate liberties with the material. I recommend Hillbilly Elegy highly. (I had my own reservations about J.D. when he announced, but he might well be the best of the lot....)